Recent estimates indicate that are millions of American adults, and juveniles who are experiencing compulsive gambling problems. Those numbers are compounded by the loved ones who suffer along with them. If the Broken Window Theory is applied, the effect of gambling's negative side effects start to spill over into the mainstream of society, or the community in which a gambling problem is present. The broken windows theory describes a slippery slope effect in relation to the social thread of norms a group shares. One neighbor lets weeds grow up, and then another neighbor does also. A neighbor moves away and drug dealers buy the weed-infested house. People buy the drugs, jobs are lost, houses fall apart, crime rises in response to drug usage. One window is broken, and then many more follow. The City of Terre Haute took a sample of 61 businesses and found 82 gambling video machines. City officials were questioned and three answered respectively.
             Bob Wright, Terre Haute's Prosecutor answers when questioned about the machines replied "I don't see much difference between these machines and people driving 100 miles to....Casino Aztar" and that he probably wouldn't prosecute such a case. In the legal sense of gambling, according to this statement, the city does not does enforce legal deterrence. Therefore, it is not formally discouraged. If the citizens are not deterred from such an activity, the activity will occur along with the moral and ethical views decaying with the current gamblers.
             Penny Davis with the Excise Police states " The Excise police are too busy with underage drinkers, liquor law violations and minors buying cigarettes to take action. Liquor law violations in relation to underage drinking has a limited decay. The individual breaks a law, has a possible addiction. The person is punished or put into rehabilitatio
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